It's hard to imagine for those of us stuck in the US cable-news bubble, but Latin America barely noticed the US presidential election. These days, few people south of the border have much hope that a mere change in leadership will restore Washington's inclination or ability to take a lead on regional affairs; one recent poll found that almost two-thirds of Latin Americans knew next to nothing about the race for the White House, and had no preference whatsoever between the two candidates. Even in Venezuela, where Hugo Chávez regularly rails against US policies, just 41% of those polled had any knowledge of America's presidential contest.

Latin America's indifference is the product of eight years of regional mismanagement and neglect by President Bush. During his first term, Bush sat on his hands while Argentina's economy imploded, tacitly endorsed a coup in Venezuela, and froze out Mexico and Chile after they opposed the Iraq war. Since then, he's abandoned any pretensions to regional leadership, all but ignoring the region's rising leftist governments and helping to create an economic and political vacuum into which China, Russia and, to a lesser extent, Iran have gladly stepped.

Will President Obama be able to do any better? With two wars and an economic meltdown to manage, charting a new direction in Latin America won't be top of the 44th president's to-do list. It's worth noting, too, that while Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, is a foreign-policy specialist, he's shown little interest in Latin America during his stint in the Senate, preferring to focus on Europe and the Middle East. That's led many Beltway observers to believe that if Obama's Latin American policy breaks with that of his predecessor, it will be through stylistic rather than substantive changes; President Obama will strike a warmer, more respectful tone towards Latin American leaders, but the bulk of his actual policies probably won't differ materially from those of Bush or Clinton.

That means that big-label programmes like Plan Colombia and the Merida initiative – a multi-billion dollar aid programme designed to curtail violence and drug trafficking in Mexico's border states – are likely to continue more or less as planned. It also makes it likely that Obama will stick more or less closely to the path set by Bush on free-trade initiatives, albeit with a new focus on environmental and labour safeguards. Even Bush's favorite boondoggle, the 700-mile security fence along the Mexican border, seems likely to be waved through by soon-to-be-President Obama; both he and his running mate, Joe Biden, voted in favour of building the fence.

There are a few areas where we're likely to see significant changes, however. As Stephen Wilkinson has pointed out, Obama is likely to overhaul America's relationship with Cuba; on the campaign trail, he made a point of aligning himself with Florida's new generation of post-Fidel Cuban-Americans, for whom decades-old ideological battles matter less than the practicalities of visiting and providing for family-members on the island. Scrapping Bush's unpopular restrictions on family travel and remittances would be a quick, easy way for Obama to consolidate his support among Florida's Latinos, and would be read across Latin America as an important symbolic gesture of goodwill. Those hoping for an end to America's failed trade embargo of the island may have to wait a while longer, though; it's likely that Obama will favor an incremental thawing of relations – increased diplomatic contact, perhaps a funding cut for TV Martí – while saving unfettered trade as a reward for significant steps towards democratisation.

A similarly cautious approach is likely when it comes to Venezuela. When Hugo Chávez this week welcomed Obama's "grand triumph" and declared himself open to meeting the president-elect to forge a "constructive bilateral agenda", the Obama camp issued a terse statement noting that relations between Washington and Caracas "will not improve unless Venezuela respects democracy and the rule of law." That caution is probably well-founded: while the end of the Maletagate trial and of the Bush era brings real hope for an easing of tensions between Venezuela and the US, Chávez may well continue to retreat into anti-Americanism when confronted with political crises. With regional elections looming and domestic tensions running high, it's far from clear whether Chávez's affection for Obama will last beyond inauguration day.

For now, though, Obama can bask in the warm welcome he's received from the region's leaders, both leftists like Argentina's Cristina Fernández and Bolivia's Evo Morales and right-wingers like Colombia's Álvaro Uribe and Mexico's Felipe Calderón. Obama's real challenge will be to harness that goodwill to broker a lasting reformulation of Latin America's relationship with Washington, and to dampen down the festering anti-Americanism that's taken root across the continent. It won't be easy, especially since Obama looks unlikely to make many revolutionary policy changes. Still, after the last eight years, the only way is up.